Dir: Eric Forsberg
Release Date: 2019
“A group of teens fights for their lives as they find themselves trapped in a fun-house, stalked by a killer clown who won't rest until every last one of them is dead”
Clowns are a staple of the Horror genre and, when done right, are a splendid addition.
Sadly, this is a lazy effort which irritates more than entertains. This is directed by the same guy who made Mega Piranha (which I quite liked and may or may not be reviewed on here) so it is even more disappointing that this is as shit as it is.
We begin with a girl asking her dad to make the next one, the last killing. Even more odd is that the town seems to be just killing the circus folk for no reason than a Preacher we never meet says it should be so.
As another oddity, the carnival folk all appear to be clowns which seems like a pretty shit circus.
Oh well, they all get shot, including some terrible CGI head gunshots to children except for one kid who ends the pre-credit sequence by emerging from the Fun-house holding a guy’s fake severed head aloft…….
25 years later:
We find ourselves in the middle of the Nevada Desert (seems like a lot of bad shit goes down out there) and we join an incredibly diverse demographic of friends on their way to a music festival standing by 2 cars.
Female Characters: There are 2 attractive girls, one strong, the other is just there. There is a geeky girl as well wearing glasses, hair in pigtail plaits and some tiny shorts. There is also the little sister of one of them there for some reason, the strong one’s sister I think. She is annoying.
Male Characters: 2 dumb jocks who don’t appear to be very athletic at all, a good looking guy with muscles who may as well be wearing a t-shirt, sleeveless of course, with HERO written on it. There is also a fat guy who may or may not be autistic. It’s never mentioned but he talks like Franklin from the classic 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is bloody annoying.
They are all just standing in the desert waiting for their friend who has wandered off like a selfish dick and is taking photos of beetles and shit which they see on some social media as they somehow have internet coverage.
This dick finds the old town and walks around talking to himself about all of the badly made clown mannequins dotted about the place until he eventually stumbles across the Funhouse.
We get a couple of jump-scares thrown in for good measure and we finally meet the Clown who introduces himself by twatting the dick over the head with a massive Test Your Strength hammer. Good.
The others, apparently just abandoning their cars and walking, eventually also find the place and of course, decide to visit the Funhouse.
Who wouldn’t, right?
Then begins around 25 minutes of them needlessly splitting up, a clown appearing/disappearing, them being scared/laughing , nobody finding a way out and some shit lighting.
I will point out that the Clown is mute and occasionally prances around like Jack Nicholson’s Joker which is not really a good combo. Some of the characters get killed outright while others are knocked out and seated in a room where they are forced to watch an old video of the carnival being good while the clown points at stuff and attempts to be threatening.
The video rattles off some attractions of old and we get to see the mute clown perform them with a deadly twist.
The most ridiculous of these being a ‘Popcorn Trick’ which involves a character having unpopped corn dumped on them and then having it pop to such an extent that, for some reason, their head explodes.
Another favourite of mine is the ‘Famous Fire Trick’, where two female characters are merely tied together and simply set on fire. Surely fire was only considered a trick when first invented, but he actually just lights a match and sets them on fire.
They don’t even die such is the pointlessness of the whole scene.
I shall now briefly summarise the deaths for you so none of us have to dwell on this film for very much longer. I shall omit the characters to preserve any surprise element should you still choose to watch this……
Hoisted aloft in a bag and beaten with a large hammer – Quite good as not overly expected
Barrel of Laughs turned up to ‘ludicrous speed’ and somehow dies – Points deducted due to not being called Barrel o’ Laughs
Classic Water Syphon Squirt – In the face until inexplicably dies
‘Popcorn Trick’ – Covered in popcorn and then has head explode
Crushed – A wall, seemingly made of cardboard, crushes someone to death
Umbrella – The sharp point of an umbrella slashes throat and then impressively stabs and removes an eyeball
To round things off, there is a beating, a suspected death, a subsequent non-death, a massive fire, an escape and a hasty fade to black with no resolution to anything you just wasted approx. 90 minutes watching.
FAVOURITE LINE:
Homer: “….cos they’re all dead now. Just like you’re gonna be in about….one minute” – Less than one minute before he, himself, dies. Fake severed head held aloft, if you recall.
FAVOURITE END CREDIT: “And Dave Klec as ‘Thoth the Clown’”. Nobody knows the clown’s name, nobody says the clown’s name, never is the clown’s name mentioned or written anywhere, and yet, his name is apparently Thoth. It’s a shit name anyway so I have no idea why they bothered to point it out.